Thank you for the opportunity to comment. Let me say that this website--which I just discovered yesterday--is both fascinating and useful. A wide variety of scientific topics are apparently discussed, ranging from science of the mind to cancer and disease research, to geology to evolution. I will most certainly revisit this site in the future, if for no other reason than the fact that it's a great way to stay informed about new scientific developments. Second, I want to state upfront that I have no ill will towards anyone on this thread. But it saddens me that from the very first post on this thread and others, people were directing users to pages that made unjustified personal attacks against me (there are various examples on this thread, but here are two: "Casey Lying For Christ" and another user even linked a URL where people can talk about "about how terrible Luskin is"). People commonly make unjustified personal attacks against me, and my response is not to get mad or even get upset. Rather, my response is that it is to feel that this kind of behavior is saddening because it does damage to what might otherwise be a fruitful, friendly, and objective scientific debate. Regardless, I absolutely refuse to respond in kind as I do not make personal attacks against other people. That is my personal ethic, and though I am not perfect, I try to live up to it.

I am thus faced with two conflicting desires here: I have no desire to involve myself in a discussion that allows personal attacks, even allowing further personal attacks after warnings from the moderator, who is apparently permitting such personal attacks to stand. Nonetheless, I do desire to honor Mr. Munger's invitation to make a comment here and his attempt to keep the conversation focused away from personal attacks. My compromise is that I will make one, and only one comment. If people want to continue to make personal attacks, cite irrelevant issues like the Wedge Document, etc., so be it. I'm not here to engage in personal attacks.

I frequently discuss peer-reviewed research related to evolution at www.evolutionnews.org. In fact, when I posted my post at EvolutionNews, that's all I thought I was doing--I had no idea that rules, including copyright issues, existed for using the graphic nor did I have any idea that by using the graphic, I would be accused of breaking rules. Given my ignorance prior to using the graphic, I would not necessarily expect my post to conform to rules that I wasn't even aware of when I posted my post. Nonetheless, I believe that my post does not break any of the 9 rules. Here's why:

It satisfies Rules #1 and #2: Dr. Orgel’s paper was clearly a respectable "armchair theorizing" paper by an eminent chemist in a mainstream biology journal that represented his views after a lifetime of prestigiously-funded research. It was reviewed and edited by another eminent chemist from the same field, Gerald Joyce. Thus, the paper states: "This manuscript was completed by the author in September 2007. Gerald Joyce provided comments to the author on earlier versions of the manuscript and edited the final version, which was submitted posthumously. The author received longtime research support from the NASA Exobiology Program and benefited from many helpful discussions with Albert Eschenmoser."

It satisfies Rules #3, #6, and #7: My post provided the complete formal citation in my post, and I also linked back to the original source. The post also contained original material that I wrote. These are black-and-white questions. Some people concede that I satisfied these. But the fact that some people have claimed that I did not satisfy a single rule makes me wonder about the fairness of some of the analyses presented here.

It does not break Rules #8 or #9: There is also the issue of my using the ResearchBlogging.org graphic. As I mentioned earlier, not having visited ResearchBlogging.org at the time I posted my post, at that time I was unaware that there was anything wrong with my using the graphic. However, I now have learned that ResearchBlogging.org has certain rules for using the graphic. Apart from using the graphic before registering (something I did not know I was supposed to do when I posted my post, but I tried to register as soon as I learned of the rules), I do not believe I have violated any of the rules: Even though Dave Munger never asked me to do so, I've removed the graphic from my post. Moreover, rule #9 indicates that a single instance of breaking a rule (in my case, unknowingly) does not warrant expulsion from ResearchBlogging.org. (Rule #8 is simply a rule stating that users may report abuses, and is not violable.)

It satisfies Rules #4 and #5: Many people on this thread have said that these rules represent the key issues. One would expect that therefore this would be the focus of the discussion. But it wasn't. Only 3 of the 30 posts here actually quoted my article, or discussed it in any meaningful way, to allege, using direct evidence, that I made any errors or misunderstood anything. Here are those posts with my response:

Post # 9: Claims I was wrong to state, “Again, Orgel essentially assumes that cyclic metabolic pathways are irreducibly complex systems that require a large number of parts in order to function”

My response: My comment is not mistaken. For example, Orgel states, "At the very least, six different catalytic activities would have been needed to complete the reverse citric acid cycle. It could be argued, but with questionable plausibility, that different sites on the primitive Earth offered an enormous combinatorial library of mineral assemblies, and that among them a collection of the six or more required catalysts could have coexisted." That seems to meet the definition of irreducible complexity.

Post # 11: “Just like the case of the ribosome, the evidence shows that the complexity of life requires an intelligent cause.”

My response: This was my personal commentary on the data (which is permitted by the rules), and was not intended to represent Dr. Orgel’s viewpoint. In fact I never claimed Orgel supported ID. In fact, I explicitly stated precisely the opposite, stating that "Orgel is no proponent of intelligent design. In fact, the purpose of his paper is to offer sage advice to those seeking to explain the origin of life via evolving metabolic pathways." In his e-mail back to me, Dave Munger stated, stated: "We welcome a variety of divergent opinions at ResearchBlogging.org, as long as posts follow our guidelines, designed to encourage reasoned and thoughtful discussion of peer-reviewed research." So there is no violation here, unless the pro-ID opinion is fundamentally disbarred from participation. In fact some users may seem to desire censorship of the pro-ID viewpoint, as one person wrote, "This is blatant abuse of the program to lend an air of credibility and should be stopped." In short, they just don’t want my application approved because it might “lend an air of credibility” to my views.

Post # 12: "Again, Orgel essentially assumes that cyclic metabolic pathways are irreducibly complex systems that require a large number of parts in order to function—including many side pathways that can remove products that will disrupt the cycle. Saying that cycles need side pathways is the exact opposite of what Orgel said in the original - cycles need to avoid side pathways to maintain themselves."

My response: In fact I quoted Orgel accurately, including the portion where he explicitly said that side-pathways must be avoided or they will disrupt the cycle. My comment, "including many side pathways that can remove products that will disrupt the cycle," was intended to show that there must be other parts present to avoid allow the cycle to avoid these side-reactions. But I can see how my statement is unclear and does not communicate that very well. In his e-mail back to me, Mr. Munger stated that I may amend my post if I feel it is necessary. In this regard, I've amended my post to fix this unintended unclear statement as follows: "Again, Orgel essentially assumes that cyclic metabolic pathways are irreducibly complex systems that require a large number of parts in order to function—including parts that allow them to avoid many side pathways that will disrupt the cycle."

I read and understood the article. I studied origin of life research in both my undergraduate and graduate studies at UC San Diego studying earth sciences, and taking courses and seminars learning from people like Jeffrey Bada, Stanley Miller, and others. I also conferred with a biochemist friend about the paper.

I won't enter a philosophical discussion about how "understanding" or "accuracy" might be a function of whether people agree with my commentary, which is obviously pro-ID. I'll just say that I am not so presumptuous to assume that if someone comes to a different conclusion than I do, that they therefore do not understand the topic, or were therefore necessarily inaccurate.

Regarding rules #4 and #5, I see no evidence that I have broken rules #4 or #5 here. Given that these were the only complaints, I can only conclude that in fact my discussion was actually quite accurate.

My final conclusion:In conclusion, these are your rules. I didn't know about them when I posted my post, but I think I nonetheless have not violated any of them. I'll respect Mr. Munger's decision, whatever it is, and whatever its stated or unstated justification is.

If you decide to allow my registration--superb! I’m not doing this to get “credibility” but because like all of you, I too love science and I’d like to think that this is a website worth contributing to. If my registration is permitted, I'll gladly contribute to what I hope this website is all about.

But if you don't want to follow your own rules, that is saddening, and it would not be the first time that a different set of rules has been applied to ID proponents vs. other scientists. Indeed, I find it most likely that one user admitted the most forceful reason why my registration would be denied: "This is blatant abuse of the program to lend an air of credibility and should be stopped."

But I’ll respect Mr. Munger’s decision, whatever it is, and the stated and unstated reasons are. I just hope that this does not become another example where, as in many corners of academia, "We welcome a variety of divergent opinions," as long as those opinions do not support intelligent design.

But I won’t presume that Mr. Munger will make such an inappropriate decision, and I’ll respect whatever he decides in the future. If anyone would like to contact me personally, please feel free to do so at [EMAIL=cluskin@discovery.org.]cluskin@discovery.org.[/EMAIL]

it would not be the first time that a different set of rules has been applied to ID proponents vs. other scientists.

preparing to sell himself as EXPELLED!

--------------"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."

But, isn't it interesting that Casey chose to answer on Evolution News, where no comments or discussions can take place? For all their big talk about teaching both sides, they run like little girls from any forum where they can be openly challenged. I guess it allows him to ignore any critical commentary by saying "Oh, I wasn't aware that they were still talking about little ole me."

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

But, isn't it interesting that Casey chose to answer on Evolution News, where no comments or discussions can take place? For all their big talk about teaching both sides, they run like little girls from any forum where they can be openly challenged. I guess it allows him to ignore any critical commentary by saying "Oh, I wasn't aware that they were still talking about little ole me."

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

Casey, you’re on record for attacking plenty of people, Barbara Forrest for one. It’s not like we don’t read what you write.

Your public lies and distortions are well documented on various web sites, you lie through your teeth, sir. Please spare us the “personal ethic” lecture. History indicates your ethics are marginal at best.

And your one set of rules for ID and another for science is laughable. Do you ever put your persecution complex to bed?

Lushkin is claiming he never makes personal attacks. WTF? For starters how many times has he personally attacked Barabare Forrest? The DI has called her names, made fun of her, written all sorts of nasty shite about her. I am floored by what a liar this guy is.

Second, I want to state upfront that I have no ill will towards anyone on this thread. But it saddens me that from the very first post on this thread and others, people were directing users to pages that made unjustified personal attacks against me (there are various examples on this thread, but here are two: “Casey Lying For Christ” and another user even linked a URL where people can talk about “about how terrible Luskin is”). People commonly make unjustified personal attacks against me, and my response is not to get mad or even get upset. Rather, my response is that it is to feel that this kind of behavior is saddening because it does damage to what might otherwise be a fruitful, friendly, and objective scientific debate. Regardless, I absolutely refuse to respond in kind as I do not make personal attacks against other people. That is my personal ethic, and though I am not perfect, I try to live up to it.

The following is from something Casey Luskin wrote up for consumption on the private "phylogenists" "intelligent design" creationism email list, subsequently posted by a fellow list member to a public Usenet newsgroup. It falls into that category of candid speech that belies public stances.

Quote

Scott definitely speaks "scientese". She presents herself as a scientist, which she once was, who is trying to do the right thing for science. She is very charismatic, funny, and very good at getting people behind what she's saying. It's no wonder she's the director of the NCSE. In the past I've compared Eugenie C. Scott to Darth Vader because she is full of internal contradictions, knows in her heart she's lying, powerful, persuasive, and most importantly, she travels around representing the dominating power (the Empire) and fighting the good guys. All in the name of ...well, I'm not exactly sure what her motivation is yet. It's certainly not truth.

(On the other hand, there is the rebellion against the Empire. Small, understaffed, often outgunned and outmanned, but not outsmarted. However, the rebellion has the people of the galaxy behind them, and most importantly, the Force. Of course not all of us in the rebellion believe in the "force" (the analogy is God), but what unites the rebellion is the common belief in the problems with the current establishment, and the desire to replace it with something better. When we introduced ourselves in the class, I should have said I was Luke Skywalker, but I suppose I was under the control of her powers at the time so I just said I was Casey, an earth sciences major.)

A "personal ethic" is something that is always active, whether one is speaking publicly or privately. I'm not sure what Casey's stated stance of not making public personal attacks may be, but I doubt it qualifies as a "personal ethic".

As I mentioned in my post at BPR, I think the simplest method of getting to the heart of the matter is to focus on rule #5. In terms of being a 'blog post', Caseys post is hardly reasonable or fair towards the original author and doesn't even bother presenting anything in it. Of the actual article, only two quotes are used and both are presented out of context devoid of discussion of the authors opinion as to why he says what he does. This alone shows that Casey didn't treat the material fairly and shouldn't be allowed to use the icon.

In conclusion, these are your rules. I didn’t know about them when I posted my post, but I think I nonetheless have not violated any of them. I’ll respect Mr. Munger’s decision, whatever it is, and whatever its stated or unstated justification is.

If you decide to allow my registration–superb!...But if you don’t want to follow your own rules, that is saddening, and it would not be the first time that a different set of rules has been applied to ID proponents vs. other scientists...

But I’ll respect Mr. Munger’s decision, whatever it is.

--------------Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."- David Foster Wallace

"Hereâ€™s a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."- Barry Arrington

I wonder if Casey thinks that not allowing comments on his posts, while nearly everyone else allows responses to their posts is having different rules. I don't think a news site qualified as a blog myself...

Sorry it's a bit late, but this is a report on weeks 7 and 8 of the UCSDanti-creationism seminar,and also on the wonderful "Darwinism, Design, andDemocary" conference in Clearwater, Florida on 11/10-11/11.

On November 9th, Eugenie C. Scott, director of the National Center forScience Education (an anti-creationist political activist group) came andspoke at the UCSD anti-creationism seminar and then gave a public lectureat Scripps Institution for Oceanography. 24 hours later I came up for abreath in Florida at the "Darwinism, Design, and Democracy" conferencehosted by Tom Woodward, Trinity College of Florida, and the Foundation forThought and Ethics. And then the following Thursday (11/16) I had thepleasure of discussing Dembski's book "Intelligent Design" at theanti-creationism seminar again with special guest star Wesley Elsberrypresiding. I'd like to share some highlights of these experiences with youall.

Eugenie C. Scott's lecture:

Scott definitely speaks "scientese". She presents herself as a scientist,which she once was, who is trying to do the right thing for science. Sheis very charismatic, funny, and very good at getting people behind whatshe's saying. It's no wonder she's the director of the NCSE. In the pastI've compared Eugenie C. Scott to Darth Vader because she is full ofinternal contradictions, knows in her heart she's lying, powerful,persuasive, and most importantly, she travels around representing thedominating power (the Empire) and fighting the good guys. All in the nameof ...well, I'm not exactly sure what her motivation is yet. It'scertainly not truth.

(On the other hand, there is the rebellion against the Empire. Small,understaffed, often outgunned and outmanned, but not outsmarted. However,the rebellion has the people of the galaxy behind them, and mostimportantly, the Force. Of course not all of us in the rebellion believein the "force" (the analogy is God), but what unites the rebellion is thecommon belief in the problems with the current establishment, and thedesire to replace it with something better. When we introduced ourselvesin the class, I should have said I was Luke Skywalker, but I suppose I wasunder the control of her powers at the time so I just said I was Casey, anearth sciences major.)

You will hopefully find this encouraging: The first thing Scott did at theseminar was hold up a copy of "Icons of Evolution" and say (this is more orless verbatim), "I want you all to see this book. This book will be a"Royal Pain in the Fanny" for those who want to be teachers of evolution[in the schools]" I had to take a double-take to make sure that she hadreally just said that. She then said that most high school bio teachersdon't want to be controversial, and if the book shows some things in atextbook to be controversial, then many k-12 teachers who "don't know a lotof science" will be "intimidated"--especially if parents use the ammoprovided by the book to check the school board--and then the teacher willjust avoid the subject altogether. She said that many textbooks might notpublish as much on the subject of evolution if it will be controversial andcause the textbook to not get sold to school districts (which, implicitly,have read Icons and understand what it is saying). She laid the blame forthis "at the foot of the university profs". She also spoke of it at thepublic seminar, saying people should watch out for it.

Also she said that the author (whom we all know very well) "works hard tohide the religious underpinnings" and like many other ID people had donehis homework well. Was that a compliment to you Dr. Wells? I'm not sosure. According to Scott ID is still "a religious movement" whose "goal isto replace scientifric materialism with theism". Apparently ID people are"using evolution as a talking horse" to achieve that goal. The falsenotion that ID is religion, and the claim that "methodological naturalismand theism aren't mutually exclusive" form the basis of her attacks uponthe arguments made by the pro-ID.

At the public lecture she went through the differences between YEC, OEC,and ID. She showed a quote from Henry Morris saying that all science mustbe based upon Scriptures, and a quote an address by someone who used to bethe director of the discovery institute (I missed the name) discussing theimportance of bringing theism back into the intellectual life. This waspart of her usual attempt to show that ID is purely religiously based, andnothing more.

Scott criticized ID because it doen't say what happened. Well, Dr. Scott,ID says that an object was intelligently designed. "Yeah," she replies,"but what happened?." "Like I said, It was intelligently designed". "Butwhat happened?" Scott doesn't get it--Intelligent Design theory is a realtheory that doesn't overstretch itself--it doen't say exactly how thedesign was inserted into the real world because at this point itcan't! But IT CAN say that it was designed, period. Of course that isn'tenough for Scott, but she just proved another point of pro-IDers that thedesign inference can stem questions which could lead to fruitful research(i.e. how was the design accomplished).

Scott also claimed that the famous Colin Patterson quote is grossly out ofcontext. Not sure how she knew that, but I'm serious about this--someoneat ARN should send her a free copy of the transcript of his talk.

The worst point she made, repeatedly was saying that the ID people say,"It's just an Intelligence" "wink wink nudge nudge". She's trying toconvince people that ID is nothing but religion. She said ID saysevolution is a bad idea. Not true. She said ID doesn't make anypractically helpful statements. Not true--especially if you're notinterested in truth. I think we need to do all day workshops at manyuniversities around the country to show people what ID really is, to stopthe lies of Scott, if ID is going to work. Otherwise she's going to goaround the country spreading this garbage, and scientists who don't knowbetter will undoubtedly buy it. She used a lot of standard criticisms ofID, irred comp, and other things I won't go into. But if anybody wantsmore details, please e-mail me and I'd be happy to provide them.

She concluded by asking everyone present to help out by joining the NCSE(similar to what seemed to happen in Marcus Ross's experience with the NCSEat GSA), to write letters to the editor fighting creationists wheneverpossible, and encouraged all scientists to go back to their churches,synagogues, temples, etc., to make sure they all get the right perspectiveon evolution. She later said that profesors need to leave philosophicalmaterialism out of the discussion as much as possible. Statements like,"Life is here by chance without a plan or purpose" (as I've had one upperdivision evolution prof, who attended her lecture, say) are now offlimits. She made that very clear that scientists need to check philosophyout at the door. I think that's good, but she never addressed the questionof whether some of the science itself is based upon philosophy. So that iswhere Scott is coming from: don't tell your students they can't believe inreligion, but do tell your fellow church members they can't believe increationism. What's wrong here?

I was able to talk with Scott one on one for about 3 minutes while shewalked from our class seminar to her public lecture. I asked her why shethinks ID isn't science. She said it isn't science because it does notrefer to natural law (a reference to Ruse's testimony which he laterrecanted). She also said that it isn't testable and she doubts thatDembski will be able to really formulate "detectable design' (even though Ithink both evolution and Design are inferences, epistimologicallyequal). Scott also opposes the teaching of ID because it would cause"chaos" in the classroom curriculum. In my opinion, that is a copoutanswer, for a well-organized presenter could present all the material inIcons and allow for a good discussion of the issue in at most two classperiods.

Here is something very interesting that I found out about the NCSE: Fromwhat I understand, the NCSE tries to coordinate the effort to fight peoplewho effectively challenge the one-sided teaching of evolution (OSToE) inthe schools. When the NCSE finds out that somebody is attacking theone-sidedness of a curriculum in an area, they apparently then contactlocal university professors and local CLERGY (who, from what it seems, tendto be catholics, lutherans, or episcopalians who tend to see evolution asreligiously neutral with regards to origins, and also seecreationist/ID/anti-evolution ideas necessarily as religious doctrinerather than empirical science). The NCSE then gets these local clergy anduniversity profs to go before the school boards to effectively testify thatany anti-OSToE ideas are purely religiously based and/or not science.

She specifically mentioned bringing in clergy, because it seems to be aneffective way of convincing school boards. That makes sense to me, becauseif I was on an innocent school board member trying to do the best thing forthe community, and saw that the religious people are OK with evolution,then I wouldn't have trouble thinking that there must be no scientificproblem with evolution.

I think that by looking at what Scott's group does, a good strategy can bedeveloped which might be very successful for pro-ID people, creationists,and any others who want to end the OSToE but don't necessarily know whereto begin.

I think that the place to start is where they start--with the localuniversity scientists and clergy. Go to the local university scientistsand host a half-day workshop for the local biology profs / other professorswith the sole intention of educating them about Intelligent Design,problems with evolutionary theory, answering any questions or reservationsthey might about ID with the intention of helping them and befriendingthem, not winning an argument or making them out to be the enemy.

The same should be done for the clergy, and emphasize to them thescientific problems with evolutionary theory, and show them that this stuffhas nothing to do with religion or causing unnecessary conflict, but withreal scientific truth and fairness and truth in scienceeducation. Hopefully they would be behind that. This could diffuse anyfuture potential objections these people might have to ID.

After talking to the local clergy and university scientists, give eachmember of the local school board a free copy of Icons. Let them read itand say, "We'll be back in about 2 weeks to present all of this stuff allover again and make our case, but we just wanted to give you a chance toread up on this before we come." In 2 weeks, come back, make the case, andget the OSToE out of the curriculum and perhaps even get some ID ideas intoit! These are just some thoughts I had. What do you all think is the beststrategy?

One last thing--someday on some website there may appear a picture of Scottwith some students, and one student in the back smiling to himself, "Mygosh what am I doing in this picture". If you ever see it, it was taken atthe seminar by Wesley Elsberry. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that WesleyEllsberry, devoted critic of William Dembski and others, came. He was herride from the airport. He videotaped and photographed her 2performances. I did get a chance to meet him (he had e-mailed the IDEAClub a few weeks earlier) and he did seem like a nice enough guy inperson. We had a long talk after his revisit to the seminar during week 8,which I'll go into in a bit.

Florida Design Conference:

In the words of Eugenie C. Scott, I attended this pro-Intelligent DesignConference because, "it's a dirty job but somebody has to do it". That'swhat she said during the public lecture about a design conference she hadonce attended. Well, attending this conference near the beach inClearwater, Florida wasn't a dirty job, and I was happy to do it!

The conference was organized by Tom Woodward of Trinity College in Floriday(see his website at "www.apologetics.org") and by the Foundation forThought and Ethics. The keynote speakers were Tom Woodward, George Lebo,and phylo Scott Minnich and Paul Chien. The theme for the conferenceseemed to be the quote, "In China we can criticize Darwin, but not thegovernment, in America you an criticize the government but notDarwin" Apparently this infamous quote was said by Chinese paleontologistDr. Jun-Yuan Chen. I didn't get the exact location or circumstances of thereference, but if anyone has it that would be great!

George Lebo spoke on Friday night about evidences for design in theuniverse. He made some interesting points--that the universe must besparsely populated because life couldn't exist in most parts of theuniverse. Apparently our solar system and galaxy are special, because thesolar system exists away from the center of the galaxy, where high levelsof radiation would prevent life, and also because the solar system is in asomewhat synchronous rotational orbit with the rest of the galaxy, suchthat the gravitational forces on the sun and planets are constant, allowingfor the earth to have a stable orbit. Otherwise, we'd be in bigtrouble. Apparently this situation is very unique among stars, and that itis unlikely that it would commonly be found in the universe.

On Saturday Paul Chien gave a great lecture on the Chenjiang Cambrianfossils. The undisrupted yellow mudstone these fossils are found in hasallowed for much better preservation than their counterparts in Canada,which are found in metamorphosed shale. Paul Chien estimates that theentire layer, which is less than 4 feet in height, was deposted in lessthan 2 million years. On an evolutionary timescale, that's aninstant. Chien noted that Chinese scientists have doubted evolutionaryexplanations for the Cambrian explosion, but said that American scientistsare "in denial" saying "maybe we'll find more fossils". One interestingpoint made, which many of you might know (but I didn't so I'll say itanyways) is that Simon Conway Morris has become a Christian. That doesn'tnecessarily mean he's pro-ID or anything even close to that, I just foundit interesting--and encouraging--that a foremost researcher into theCambrian life has become a Christian. Chen said, "[Chinese scientists] gowhere the evidence leads because they cannot deny [the scientificevidence]". It's a blessing to have Paul Chien on the side of ID on theCambrian explosion.

Scott Minnich also spoke on Saturday on the bacterial flagellum. This talkwas fascinating, as I'm not a biologist, and was amazed as he told us somestatistics on the flagellum. The flagellum is a self-assembled and repair,water-cooled rotary engine consisting of 30 structural parts and driven bya proton motor force. In some cases it has 2 gears--forward and reverse,and operates at speeds usually around 17,000 but has been seen as high as100,000 rpm. Wow--Ford motorcompany should take notes! There areapparently no papers discussing the origin and evolution of theflagellum. The Designer is apparently a lot better than we are! Scottnoted that the base of the flagellum is used in the mechanisms that someviruses use. Thus, it is designed, but also designed to kill. No one saidwe lived in a pretty world. Scott also made a great point that many peopleoften complain that design theory is just old arguments beingre-used. Yes, Scott said! And now those formerly dismissed arguments arebeing revitalized by new data!

I could say a lot more on the conference, but as far as the talks go thesewere definitely the highlights! I missed the talk on ID in PublicEducation and law, given by Tom Woodward, so sorry that I can't report onit to you all. Why did you go all the way from California to Florida for aweekend conference on ID you ask? Well, AS of UCSD helped to cover a goodportion of our trip costs, as we went as representatives of the IDEA Club,a student organization which can receive AS funding for that stuff. So, itwasn't a free trip, but it was free enough so I'd go! My friend Nate and Ihad a great time, and really enjoyed meeting Scott Minnich and Paul Chienin person! The trip was an amazing blessing for me, and if you ever go toClearwater, go to Frenchy's on the Beach and try the grouper sandwich!

UCSD (anti)Creationism seminar Week 8:

Wesley Elsberry (San Diego chauffeur for Eugenie C. Scott), a graduatestudent and marine biologist who works for the Navy came and sat in as theresident expert on Intelligent Design. This meeting started off VERYINTERESTING. I walked in a bit late as I have a class beforehand that ranovertime. I sat down and what to my surprise did my little eyes see, but acopy of the IDEA Club website being printed around! It got passed to me,and I passed it along. I now am fairly sure I know what happened.

About 3 weeks ago Wesley Elsberry e-mailed the IDEA Club to suggest a linkfor our links page. It was a brief, but friendly e-mail correspondence. AtScott's talk I introduced myself and said that I was the one he had justbeen e-mailing with. So now that Elsberry knew that I was in the class andalso the IDEA Club guy, he told the professor, who then printed out theclub website and brought it to the class the following week. Theintellectual doubters of evolution page had also been printed out, sothanks to all of you who have helped me get it up to an impressive 125people in just a few hours of work over the past few weeks! Hopefully thatnumber can be tripled that before its completed.

Anyway, the discussion topic for last week was the Ch. 4 "Naturalism andit's cure" from Dembski's book "Intelligent Design". It's probably a goodthing I didn't know about the reading assignment, because if I had read it,I would have probably been a little too zealous for the class. Dembski'schapter 4 is very Christian, and makes some very challenging points --bothon a personal level and on a philosophical level, to the naturalist. Thesepoints need to be made, but they are more of a Christian philosophicaldiscussion of Intelligent Design rather than a scientific one of whatIntelligent Design theory really is. So needless to say a lot of thepeople in the class probably didn't like reading about our sinful nature.

Dembski does make the point, that "neither theology nor philosophy cananswer the evidential question whether God's interaction with the world isempirically detectable. ... To answer this question we must look toscience" (Pg. 104-105)

Wesley Elsberry is convinced that God's interaction with the world, if itever happened, isn't detectable. He apparently plans on submitting, oralready is submitting a pre-emptive paper to some journal somewhere inwhich he distingiushes between what he calls "ordinary design" and"rarified design". Ordinary design is the design of things weunderstand--sculpture, buildings, language signals, etc." while rarifieddesign would be design in the realm of biology, which he would probably saywe don't understand. Elsberry says that "rarified design /= ordinarydesign". He calls equating the two an inductive leap. As far as inferringa simple intelligent cause, I don't think it's a leap at all, and I don'tthink that Elsberry can rigorously distinguish between the two types ofdesign without assuming that biological design can't exist.

One girl said still didn't understand how the ID people didn't mean Godwhen they talked about the Intelligent Designer and she cited the fact thatDembski constantly refers to God in "Intelligent Design". I said that's avalid point, but I said that while this may not be too constructive orconsistent as far as rigorously promoting ID theory goes, it is perfectlylegitimate in a popularized version of "The Design Inference", which isbasically pure math and doesn't even mention God. Apparently no one in theclass had yet even heard of "The Design Inference." Fortunately WesleyElsberry had brought a copy along, so he actually came to Dembski's defensefor mentioning God saying that Dembski did write another technical bookwhich is more rigorous and doesn't mention God, and that the "IntelligentDesign" book is meant to be a "bridge between science and theology" so it'sprobably OK for him to mention God.

The anti-creationist professor said to the class that an evolutionaryworldview doesn't imply a personal God. Oh no. I'm confused! Eugenie C.Scott says it's OK to believe in evolution and God, but you, Dr. professor,say I cannot! Actually the AC-prof committed the very blunder that Scotttold him not to. Enter William Dembski, with the bridge between scienceand theology.

We talked about the explanatory filter ideas, and how Dembski is arguingthat certain things are too improbable to have happened due to purechance. I love how Dembski basically wrote a very long technicalmathematical book to take the excuse away from atheists that "It was just acoincidence". We didn't get too far into debating the technical aspectsof it, although I did bring up Specified Complexity at one point (not sureif it would have come up otherwise). Elsberry claimed that these ideas arenot good science because they haven't spawned any further papers orresearch. But aren't you responding to them in print Wesley? If they'reso useless or bad science, why the needed refutations? I didn't realizethis until after, but apparently nobody ever mentioned that "The DesignInference" was printed by Cambridge University press. I found that outafter the class, as a classmate was very surprised to find out who thepublisher was!

At one point the AC-prof said that the human backache affliction isevidence of a history of natural selection (I happen to have one as I writethis as I've been sitting at the computer for 2 hours). I noted that theseare theological claims, not scientific, and that there are many theologicalanswers for why we have backaches. But the AC-prof mainained it is scienceand evidence of natural selection because we have backaches because ourback uses parts that look like other parts in the body, and naturalselection can only build with things that are already there. Is thistrue? Why do we have backaches (in a physiological sense?). I'd reallylike to know, and can somebody get me a tylenol right now while you're up?

Sersiouly, the AC-prof merely exchanged one theological answer for another,as if to imply that the Designer can't re-use parts! Perhaps there's beensome devolution over time--what do you all think of that?

Two last interesting points were that Elsberry said that the ACLU believesthat one day there will be a court case that they just won't win, becausethese slippery creationists will be able to come up with somethinglegitimate. That was interesting to hear--I wonder who is sources are!

Also, Elsberry said that we shouldn't teach ID because as Scott said, weshould "teach the best science that is avaialble." This "best science" isapparently determined by a "consensus" of scientists. So now we decidewhat is true and what isn't true by committee? I know that's sort of howscience works, but who will be on the committee? This sounds like the NAScommittee who wrote the book I'll be reporting on for the class next week"Science and Creationism a vew from the National Academy of sciences".

According to an article in the Sept 99 issue of Scientific American, only5% of NAS members believe in a personal God. That says something when youcompare it to polls saying that 40% of practicing scientists at largebelieve in God. Plus, I think that Zero of that 5% were on the committeethat wrote, "Science and Creationism a vew from the National Academy ofsciences". Regardless, next week it's my turn. I get to present on thebooklet, so if any of you have any comments, or helpful suggestions forstrategy, it would be very much appreciated. Does anybody know anythingabout Rodhocetus, an alleged land-mammal-->whale transition? That would bevery helpful. In any case, I've got some good materials already, but Imight ask for some more help in a few days. Take care all and be thankfulto the Designer for all you have this Thanksgiving--even the backaches!

Based on his comments in that thread it's pretty easy to conclude Case Luskin is a pussy. Seriously. Being the chief of propaganda for the DI is probably the most meaningful thing he's ever done in life.

Isn't he supposed to be a lawyer? He should know better than to use a graphic if he doesn't know where it comes from and that he has permission to use it.

--------------To rebut creationism you pretty much have to be a biologist, chemist, geologist, philosopher, lawyer and historian all rolled into one. While to advocate creationism, you just have to be an idiot. -- tommorris

I am willing to consider further participation in this thread, if Mr. Munger is willing to start enforcing a moderating principle that removes any personal attacks from both past and future posts on this thread.

Don't do us any favors, Caseykins.

What are you willing to consider doing if we give you a pony?

--------------"Molecular stuff seems to me not to be biology as much as it is a more atomic element of life" --Creo nut Robert Byers------"You need your arrogant ass kicked, and I would LOVE to be the guy who does it. Where do you live?" --Anger Management Problem Concern Troll "Kris"

--------------It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)